Meet This Year’s Batch of Top Quality Reform Candidates

Those hoping to stand as a candidate for Reform UK must submit identity documents, a CV and a £125 application fee, and answer questions such as: “Do you have a Facebook/X/Instagram/TikTok/YouTube/LinkedIn account? You must always be honest in your answer, as we will check this information.”

Candidates must also declare if they have been part of any organisations “proscribed by the Reform UK board”. Among them are extreme right groups like National Action, Homeland and Patriotic Action, plus, conversely, Antifa.

The party’s vetting process for Wales is “a centrally-controlled process that favours insiders, parachuted candidates and personal connections over local knowledge and competence”, according to a whistleblower.

Reform leader Nigel Farage has claimed his party gets more scrutiny than any other and shrugged off allegations that the party’s vetting isn’t up to scratch, saying “sometimes people lie”.

Despite the party’s attempts at vetting, they always seem to attract a certain kind of candidate and this year’s local elections are no different. Without further ado, here is an non-exhaustive list of Reform’s brightest and best candidates.

The Wayne Hennessy impersonator.

Former Tory special advisor Corey Edwards quit the race for the Welsh Senedd two days after his Reform candidacy was announced. In the brief window that he was standing, a picture of him emerged appearing to show him performing a Nazi salute. A Reform spokesperson announced Edwards had stepped down on 27 March, “citing issues with his mental health”.

Mr Edwards apologised for the image, and seemed to compare himself to the Fawlty Towers character Basil Fawlty and former Wales goalkeeper Wayne Hennessy, who pleaded ignorance when he was accused of performing a Nazi salute. Edwards told journalists: “A photo from many years ago has been shared that I recognise looks bad and could be misinterpreted.

“There is a clear distinction between ordinary use of the appalling gesture, compared with me imitating a Welsh footballer’s use of it, or indeed Basil Fawlty’s walk.”

The one who thinks nurses eat too much.

James Bembridge is Reform’s candidate for the West End ward of Westminster, encompassing the entertainment district of Soho and glamorous Mayfair. He also has a bit of a thing about the NHS.

During the Covid pandemic, a X/Twitter account allegedly linked to Bembridge – @TheBembridge – posted: “The rancour that the pro-NHS folk have against me will never match the visceral hatred that I have for the NHS. I don’t want reform – I want to see it torn down to the ground.”

In 2021, the same account posted: “I’m not sure why applause is so readily given to NHS nurses who claim to be driven to using food banks when, looking at them, they are presumably eating them out of business.”

Reform says it’s investigating the allegations. 

These posts seem to have disappeared, but Sean Walsh, who edits Country Squire magazine reposted screengrabs of the posts, saying: “The suggestion that @TheBembridge is a morally compromised bounder is untrue. He is far worse than that. He wouldn’t be my friend otherwise.” The X-verified @TheBembridge account retweeted this.

Plenty of other similar posts are still live, including the @TheBembridge account posting: “I’m an NHS blasphemer and proud.”

Bembridge is the deputy editor of Country Squire, which aims to “reflect the vision, the dreams and the narrative of those who have already chosen green fields over high rises, narrow lanes over the fast lane” and “platform for voices from the overlooked Great British Countryside”. Just the man for a council seat in bucolic Soho.

‘I don’t stand by it… except Enoch Powell.’

It may not surprise you to learn that a number of Reform candidates have made unfortunate comments about Muslims on social media.

Among them, Daniel Devaney, 70, is Reform’s candidate in the Bradford ward of Clayton and Fairweather Green. Writing on Facebook in September 2024, he said he wanted to “blast [Muslims] all of the face of the earth [sic]”.

According to Hope Not Hate, Devaney also described Muslims as “pure scum”, adding: “We’re being invaded by potential terrorists day in day out.” 

He also shared a video of Enoch Powell saying, “there will be the whip hand over the white man held by the immigrant”, Devaney wrote: “Never a more truer word said [sic].” 

Contacted by the Mirror about the allegations, he said: “I don’t stand by with what I put except Enoch Powell. The things I wrote was mainly mouthing off and not really thinking about what I put but really to wind people up and it’s very easy to do.” 

Devaney added: “I apologise for what I said in the posts and some of them I should have worded it better. I’m not racist as I have said before as I help my Asian neighbours. I just want to do something for my community.” Reform UK said it “was looking into the allegations”. 

Meanwhile, Terrance David Reynolds, Reform’s candidate for the Queens Park ward of Swindon, has called for “mass destructions” – possibly a typo meaning “deportation” – on Facebook, illustrated with a picture of people in Middle Eastern clothing. Another post shared by Reynolds said “We Want Muslims Gone”, while a third post said US citizens have been advised to leave the UK “because it is a shithole”. Another post said: “Be honest… would you back a total ban on immigration from Islamic nations in the UK. Like and share if you agree.” 

These posts were all made in April or March of this year, while Reynolds was preparing to become a Reform candidate. He told a Local Democracy Reporting Service reporter, “I do stand by what I posted,” and then also said he would represent all residents regardless of their religion.

In the outer London borough of Bexley, Reform candidate Caroline Panetta retweeted a comment saying Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, wanted to turn the capital into “Londonstan”. In her own post, she reportedly called Islam “the religion of rape, incest and paedophilia”.

Reform did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

Sticks and stones.

Alan Stay, who is running in the Hunnyhill and Parkhurst ward for the Isle of Wight council, also appears to have spent too much time on Facebook over the last decade.

In one post, Stay shared a BBC story headlined “DJ loses job over N-word in song”. He stated the slur three times and said: “cos its only words, not sticks and stones that brake your bones, just words that never hurt you.” [sic.]

He also shared a post of darts sticking in a wall having missed the board, implying it was women who had thrown them.

Reform told the Isle of Wight County Press that it was investigating.

Fluffy McSpankins.

Enough depressing Facebook boomerisms. How about something a little more zeitgeisty and yet niche – a little bit 2.0 meets the 1800s? We now turn to Arnold Tabor, the party’s candidate for South Elmsall and South Kirkby on Wakefield borough council.

According to Hope Not Hate, Tabor has a YouTube account with the name Fluffy McSpankins, which he uses to post comments about the Lotus Eaters – a far-right podcast. He has used this platform to call for a “huge walled workhouse city” for migrants with “no pay only a roof over their head and 2 meals a day”. He has also joked about navy destroyers performing fire drills in the Channel that “sink migrants boats that cross a line saying ‘they got in the way’”.

In another post, Tabor wrote: “We need a Mosely/Enoch Powell in the UK.”

Reform told the Independent that it was investigating the allegations.

Barnet’s king of outsourcing.

Some Reform candidates have alleged track records of more than just dodgy YouTube posts.

Dan Thomas, Reform’s leader in Wales, who is hoping to become first minister, was in senior roles at Barnet council in north London for two decades. As Thomas served as a Tory councillor, deputy council leader, and then as leader from 2019 to 2022, Barnet became a radical experiment in council outsourcing. One council contract with outsourcing giant Capita ended up costing £229m more than initially planned, and jobs were transferred to the private sector, according to a report by Unison.

Barnet branch secretary of the Unison trade union John Burgess said: “I watched Dan Thomas operate for the best part of two decades in Barnet. He is adversarial, arrogant and hostile to anyone who challenges him. When residents tried to ask questions, he shut down public scrutiny at council meetings.

“People in Wales need to understand what he did when he had power. He championed contracts that cost the council £229m more than planned, left basic financial controls in tatters and saw Barnet become the first local authority fined by the pensions regulator.”

Reform did not respond to a request for comment from Nation Cymru earlier this month.